A social networking system, such as a social networking website, enables its users to interact with it and with each other through the system. The social networking system may create and store a record, often referred to as a user profile, in connection with the user. The user profile may include a user's demographic information, communication channel information, personal interests and user's interaction with other users within the social networking system. The social networking system may also create and store records of user's events, for example, a social event the user is planning to attend. Meanwhile, a user may control whether his information is shared with others by configuring privacy settings associated with a user profile and event information.
Directories of information related to people are known. In addition, the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol is an application protocol for querying and modifying data using directory services. A directory can be a set of objects with attributes organized in a logical and hierarchical manner. A simple example is the telephone directory, which consists of a list of names (of either persons or organizations) organized alphabetically, with each name having an address and phone number associated with it.